RACE-HATE nailbomber David Copeland has struck up a bizarre friendship with hook-handed Muslim fanatic Abu Hamza, The People can reveal.

The oddball pair have been spotted chatting with each other in the exercise yard at their top-security jail.

Other inmates have been left gobsmacked by the unlikely union between neo-Nazi killer Copeland, 28, and hate-filled Islamic preacher Hamza, 47.

Only last month The People revealed how Copeland - sentenced to life for murdering three people in a 1999 pub blast - had turned to the Muslim faith and was reading the Islamic holy book the Koran.

Now the British National Party activist has struck up a friendship with Hamza in the exercise yard of a special anti-terror high-security unit at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.

A prison source said: "Hamza and Copeland have had regular conversations with each other.

"They seem to be getting on well. It is one of the most unlikely friendships you can imagine."

The unit holds dozens of al-Qaida suspects including Egyptian-born Hamza who faces extradition to America on 11 charges of terrorism and, if found guilty, could get up to 100 years' jail.

Copeland, who terrorised ethnic and gay communities in his bombing spree, suddenly found himself surrounded by prisoners of Arabic, Pakistani, Indian and North African descent when he was switched from Broadmoor hospital to Belmarsh's anti-terror block.

The 32 prisoners in single cells there are not allowed to mix with the rest of Belmarsh's inmates.

Our source added: "Copeland knows he is never getting out so has to make the best of his situation."